zek HYDRO 2021

Page 18

HYDRO

Foto: zek

KELAG COMMISSIONS NEW SHOWCASE POWER PLANT IN MONTENEGRO

Foto: zek photo credits: Interenergo

Mithilfe von Bruchsteinen undpower Schüttungen die Wasserfassung The Vrbnica plant in wurde far north-west Montenegro für das neue Kraftwerk Alvierbach Vorarlberger Brandnertal has been in operation sinceimNovember last year. The new naturnah Diewith Anlage, die seit capacity Februar of letzten Jahres small gestaltet. power plant an installed 6 megawatts in Betrieb ist, erzeugt Stromsubsidiary für rund 1.700 Haushalte. was builtgrünen by Kelag's Interenergo d.o.o.

In autumn 2020, KELAG-Kärntner Elektrizitäts-Aktiengesellschaft commissioned a new small hydropower plant in northwest Montenegro. The energy service provider carried out the project over a period of three years with its Slovenia-based sub­ sidiary Interenergo d.o.o. Kelag did not just pay special attention to the technical design of the 6 MW power plant, it mainly paid attention to winning over the Montenegrin population. Numerous discussions were held in the run-up to the project, local residents were included in the plans and the benefits of the project as well as the unavoidable impact on surrounding nature were communicated in a clear and transparent way. The operators used modern Coanda systems from Wild Metal GmbH, the South Tyrolean hydraulic steelwork specialist, in order to operate the power plant with as little maintenance as possible.

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by piece and later reconstructed at its new location from the original pieces. A NEW SINGLE-STAGE POWER PLANT CONCEPT Plans were simultaneously pored over during the implementation of the project, such as how to get the best possible use out of the

photo credits: Interenergo

M

ontenegro is seen, quite rightly, as a hydropower country. The hydropower plants in this small Balkan state produce around 5.4 billion kWh per year (Source: Laenderdate.info). This means that hydropower provides the lion's share of around 69 % of the country's total electricity generation. One of its hydropower plants stands out from the rest and is known beyond the county's local borders: It is the Piva power plant which has a total installed capacity of 360 MW. This is a megaproject dating from the Yugoslavian era which was realized in the first half of the 1970s. Mratinje dam's specially built 220 m high concrete arch dam was one of the highest in the whole of Europe for a long time. The damming led to the formation of the Piva Lake, which is Montenegro's second large lake covering 12.5 km2. The small town of Plužine, which was lost in the process, was rebuilt on the shores of the dam. All that was preserved was the famous Piva Kloster, which was previously removed piece

body of water in the upper reaches. Taking the Vrbnica River as an example, engineers from Titos had envisaged a three-stage project with a small dam wall. However nothing was to come of it, as Sebastjan Rozman, engineer at Interenergo and proven expert in all questions relating to hydropower in the Bal­

The energy transmission through the wooded hills had to be specifically built for this.

May 2021

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07.05.2021 12:31:01


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